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Mechanical cleaning devil Viennese researchers turn Kuka robots into smart cleaning machines

Source: TU Wien | Translated by AI 2 min Reading Time

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Taiwan Machine Tool & Accessory Builders' Association (TMBA)

Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have developed a cleaning robot for the bathroom that cleans the sink after prior instruction.

This Kuka robot has been "trained" by researchers at the Vienna University of Technology to be a cleaning expert for sinks and more. However, according to the experts, this is not so easy. Here they reveal how they made the robot do it ...(Image: TU Wien)
This Kuka robot has been "trained" by researchers at the Vienna University of Technology to be a cleaning expert for sinks and more. However, according to the experts, this is not so easy. Here they reveal how they made the robot do it ...
(Image: TU Wien)

The movements that the novel bathroom cleaning robot from TU Vienna has to perform are quite complicated, according to the researchers. Additionally, the force with which the cleaning robot brushes over surfaces must also be defined. Bringing this all together would be too complex for normal programming, it is further stated. Therefore, it was necessary to consider how to give the robot its commands in a simpler way. Capturing the shape of a sink with cameras is relatively easy, but that is not the crucial step. The much more difficult part is teaching the robot which part of the surface to clean with what type of movement, how fast, at what angle, and with what force. We humans learn this from experience and/or simply imitate the whole process. The robot should ideally be able to do the same. However, this was not possible with a normal sponge, the Viennese researchers recall. Therefore, a high-tech sponge with force sensors and tracking markers is needed.

From the toilet bowl to the car body

To do this, a team member repeatedly cleaned an outer edge of the test sink. With just a few demonstrations, the experts generated a huge amount of data, which was then processed to teach the robot what proper cleaning actually means. This learning process succeeds through an innovative data processing strategy. Several already proven techniques from the field of machine learning are combined in this approach. The measurement data is statistically processed, and a neural network is trained with the results. This generates the instructions for the movements of the robot arm to achieve an optimal cleaning result. And the best part: with the learned knowledge, the robot can also clean other objects, such as the toilet bowl. The robot has learned that the sponge must be held differently depending on the surface shape and that it needs to exert different force on a tightly curved area than on a flat surface. According to the researchers, the type of movement can also be used for tasks such as sanding wooden objects or repairing and polishing paint damage on car bodies. One can even imagine welding sheet metal parts. Lastly, the robot can also be made mobile. This is also explained in a video.

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